= highly recommended
Skating fearlessly on the edge of tastelessness and sentimentality, Oasis is another strong, provocative film by Lee Chang-dong (Peppermint Candy), an edgy tale about a dense jailbird and a woman with cerebral palsy who grimace, grunt, and thrash their way toward an awkward but affecting last tango in a dingy Seoul apartment. As it ranges through harrowing melodrama, discomfiting comedy, bitter jabs at bourgeois hypocrisy, and sweet, fleeting fantasies, Oasis demonstrates the tonal elasticity and moral elusiveness that characterize much of the new South Korean cinema. Lee is a director of dogged force rather than finesse, and here much of that force comes from the fierce lead performances of Sol Kyung-gu (the blighted antihero of Peppermint Candy) and the remarkable Moon So-ri, who’s quickly establishing herself as one of the most intriguing talents around. In Korean with subtitles. 132 min. (MR) (Landmark, 6:30)
My Architect: A Son’s Journey
One of the most important Yugoslav directors of the 70s and 80s, Srdjan Karanovic (Petra’s Wreath, The Fragrance of Wild Flowers) was also a vociferous opponent of the Milosevic regime. Loving Glances, his first feature in 12 years, is a gentle, pensive satire on destructive nationalism. Labud, a Serb, is a refugee in Belgrade in 1996. While searching for his lost girlfriend, he finds a new one–a Muslim–via a computer dating service. The romance is monitored by the disapproving ghosts of his ancestors, who want him involved with someone ethnically “pure.” A fairy-tale ending sees multiculturalism triumph and love conquer all. In Serbo-Croatian with subtitles. 97 min. (GP) (Landmark, 7:15)
The Man of the Year
- While it didn’t convince me to give up corn dogs, Ron Mann’s 100-minute celebration of actor Woody Harrelson’s Simple Organic Living tour (a bus-and-bicycle caravan spreading the gospel of holistic living along the Pacific coast) is a highly entertaining form of ecological agitprop–radical but accessible. Mann’s shrewdest ploy is to shift his focus from Harrelson to Steve Clark, his junk-food-addicted production assistant, whose comic encounters with strangers along the way look staged but purportedly weren’t. Great music and animation plus a pivotal cameo by Ken Kesey helped make this a popular favorite at the Toronto film festival. (JR) (Landmark, 9:30)
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A legend in his own mind, singer, bandleader, and self-proclaimed “number three soul man” Jon E. Edwards has been crisscrossing the country for years, playing small venues and waiting for his big break. Filmmakers Chris Bradley and Kyle LaBrache spent over two years with Edwards and followed him through some major personal changes, including moves from New York to Los Angeles to look after his dying mother and then back to New York just in time for September 11. Although he talks longingly about the Armani-swaddled high life that eludes him, Edwards is more than just a pathetic hanger-on and enjoys a cult following among Manhattan hipsters. 85 min. (JK) (Landmark, 12:30)
